impropriety and lack of common decency will have to pass before the bemused gaze of the electorate before this ragbag administration finally runs out of credit?’ – letter to the editor, The Observer (22 May 1994).
common or garden Common, ordinary. Since 1892. ‘I have – to use a common or garden expression – been “rushed” in this matter’ – Westminster Gazette (4 August 1897); ‘I wonder if it’s possible that I’m all wrong about our friend Victor Dean. Can it be that he was merely a common or garden blackmailer, intent on turning his colleague’s human weaknesses to his own advantage?’ –Dorothy L. Sayers, Murder Must Advertise, Chap. 13 (1933); ‘The APT is going to be the common or garden inter-city train of the future’ – New Scientist (10 June 1971).
(the) common pursuit ‘[The critic] must compose his differences with as many of his fellows as possible in the common pursuit of true judgement’ – T. S. Eliot, ‘The Function of Criticism’ (1923). Hence, The Common Pursuit, title of a book of essays (1952) by the critic F. R. Leavis. In turn, it became the title of a play (1984) by Simon Gray about a group of Cambridge undergraduates and graduates who produce a literary magazine called The Common Pursuit.
communist See ARE YOU NOW.
compassion fatigue Reluctance to contribute further to charities and good causes because of the many demands made upon one’s compassion. A coinage of the 1980s when numerous fund-raising events, such as Live Aid for famine relief, led to instances of public withdrawal from giving. Originally used in the USA regarding refugee appeals. Derived from ‘metal fatigue’. A variant was donor fatigue. ‘Geldof, the Irish rock musician who conceived the event [Live Aid] and spearheaded its hasty implementation, said that he “wanted to get this done before compassion fatigue set in”’ – The New York Times (22 September 1985); ‘What the refugee workers call “compassion fatigue” has set in. Back in the 1970s, when the boat people were on the front page, the world was eager to help. But now the boat people are old news’ – The Listener (29 October 1987).
(a/the) competitive edge The quality that gives a product or service the ability to defeat its rivals. ‘Banks and securities firms lag behind their rivals elsewhere in innovation, and have lost what competitive edge Japan’s relatively low interest rates and strong currency gave them abroad a few years ago’ – The Economist (1 May 1993); ‘Over the coming months all Harris Semiconductors’ employees around the world – from managers to office cleaners – will play the game to experience for themselves the tough business decisions executives must make to maintain their competitive edge’ – The Daily Telegraph (6 May 1995).
concentrated cacophony! Catchphrase from the BBC radio show ITMA (1939–49). Deryck Guyler’s archetypical scouser, ‘Frisby Dyke’, found this a bit hard to understand. After a noisy burst of music, the show’s star, Tommy Handley might say, ‘Never in the whole of my three hundred ITMA’s have I ever heard such a piece of concentrated cacophony.’ Dyke: ‘What’s “concentrated cacophony”?’
(the) concrete jungle Deprived urban areas where the ‘law of the jungle’ may apply. Known by 1969. Compare the similar asphalt jungle and BLACKBOARD JUNGLE [i.e. the educational system]. The ‘asphalt’ phrase was in use by 1920 though it was further popularized by W. R. Burnett’s novel The Asphalt Jungle (1949). ‘The May sun beats down upon the Glasgow Deccan, the hot tarmac plains that stretch to the east, to the fringe of the steaming concrete jungle’ – The Scotsman (8 May 1994); ‘Sir: Roy Porter’s comments (“Frankly we don’t give a hoot for barn owls”, 19 October) might impress some fellow townies and lovers of the concrete jungle, but this anti-rural spleen does not fool those who better understand the countryside’ – letter to the editor, The Independent (21 October 1994).
(the) condemned man ate a hearty breakfast Meaning that someone in apparently deep trouble has managed to make an ostentatious display of not worrying about it. The tradition has been established that a condemned man can have anything he desires for his last meal. Boswell in his Life of Johnson (for 27 June 1784) has General Paoli saying: ‘There is a humane custom in Italy, by which persons [sentenced to death] are indulged with having whatever they like best to eat and drink, even with expensive delicacies’. This, presumably, was not then an English custom or Paoli would not have bothered to mention it, nor Boswell to repeat it. As to the origin of the cliché, it presumably lies in ghoulish newspaper reports of the events surrounding executions in the days of capital punishment in Britain. There was a vast amount of popular literature concerning prominent criminals and public executions, especially in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but so far citations of this date only from the 20th and tend to be of a metaphorical nature. A book of short stories about the Royal Navy by ‘Bartimeus’, called Naval Occasions and Some Traits of the Sailor (1914), has: ‘The Indiarubber Man opposite feigned breathless interest in his actions, and murmured something into his cup about condemned men partaking of hearty breakfasts.’ The tone of this suggests it was, indeed, getting on for a cliché even then. The Prisoner Ate a Hearty Breakfast is the title of a novel (1940) written by Jerome Ellison. In the film Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), Louis Mazzini, on the evening of his supposed execution, disavows his intention of eating ‘the conventional hearty breakfast’. In No Chip on My Shoulder (1957), Eric Maschwitz writes: ‘Far from closing for ever, Balalaika [was merely to be] withdrawn for a fortnight during which time a revolving stage was to be installed at Her Majesty’s! It was almost ridiculously like an episode from fiction, the condemned man, in the midst of eating that famous “hearty breakfast”, suddenly restored to life and liberty.’ ‘As tradition would have it, the condemned man ate a hearty breakfast. Lennie Lawrence, the Charlton manager, tucked into his scrambled egg and sausages before the match at Maine Road and said that to lose against fellow regulation contenders Manchester City would leave him with a “massive, massive task”’ – The Sunday Times (25 February 1990).
conditions dat prevail See GOODNIGHT, MRS CALABASH.
conduct unbecoming The full phrase is ‘conduct unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman’ and seems to have appeared first in the (British) Naval Discipline Act, Article 24 (10 August 1860), though the notion has also been included in disciplinary regulations of other services, and in other countries, if not in quite these words. Conduct Unbecoming is the title of a play by Barry England (1969; film UK 1975) and obviously was drawn from this same source, as was the title of the film An Officer and a Gentleman (US 1982).
(a) confederacy of dunces A phrase that comes from Jonathan Swift: ‘Many a true genius appears in the world – you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him’ – Thoughts on Various Subjects (1706). Hence, A Confederacy of Dunces, the title of a novel (1980) by John Kennedy Toole.
confirmed bachelor See NOT THE MARRYING SORT.
confusion to his enemies British naval toast to the king, possibly first used in the 17th century. A schedule of naval toasts included: ‘Monday Night – Our Ships at sea; Thursday Night – Confusion to our enemies, or, A bloody war, or, more selectively, Death to the French!’ Other versions are ‘Confusion to the enemy’ and ‘Confusion to the French’ (perhaps the original form). From Tom Higgs, 300 Years of Mitcham Cricket: ‘Lord Nelson, when watching the cricket match on Mitcham Green before travelling to Portsmouth, his ship “Victory” and the Battle of Trafalgar (October 1805), gave John Bowyer (aged fifteen) a shilling: “To drink confusion to the French”. The traditional song ‘Here’s a Health unto His Majesty’, continues: ‘With a fal lal la la la la la! / Confusion to his enemies / With a fal lal la la la la la!’ A nautical dictionary, this definition of a Fire Ship:
